


Feverflare

by CrystalRebellion



Category: Voltron: Defender of the Universe (1984)
Genre: Comfort, Cuddles, Cultural Differences, F/M, Fluff, Healing, Sickfic, Sickness, cross-culture learning, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 17:56:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17208152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrystalRebellion/pseuds/CrystalRebellion
Summary: When Lotor notices Blue Lion does not appear for a battle, he quickly comes to learn she's fallen ill.  All plans of conquest are thrown to the back burner as he investigates the Arusian's unusual ailment, and realizes he might be the only one to help her heal from it.





	Feverflare

"Sire, the robeast has been deployed."

The prince nodded once, his lips pressed together tightly.  He studied the twilight landscape, growing bored with the tedious ritual.  He had no extravagant plan or deceitful trick this time; he merely needed to stage an assault to appease his father's mounting pressure.

The glinting fortress stood starkly in shadow, a testament to its unrelenting fortitude.  Red beacons blared from the windows; the staff and pilots alerted to the Doom presence.

As predicted, the lions converged on the castle from their mystical resting places in the distance, hovering together in formation.

His eyes narrowed at the obvious anomaly.

"Sire, there are only four lions," the sentry reported from his station, glancing over his shoulder as Lotor straightened in his command chair, his interest instantly snared as he scoured the skies.

"Where is the Blue Lion?"

The guard looked back to the dash before him and after a few keystrokes, delivered a report that strummed a thread of concern in the warlord.

"Unknown.  It appears to still be resting in the water."

Lotor glanced toward the castle, his brow furrowing at the strange circumstance.  Blue and Black Lion were often the first on scene, due to their proximity to the castle.

_Where is she?_

Abruptly he stood up, staring at the screen before him.  A sobering sensation settled in his stomach.  If Blue Lion were not present - he could actually _win_.  More grappling than the decadent prospect, however, was the undercurrent of the entire premise: _Why_ was Blue Lion not present?  Lotor had not orchestrated any schemes or trickery to separate her from her team, and the feisty princess was not one to abandon the call to war on a whim.

"Engage the lions, but do no fatal harm.  Keep them... entertained.  ...And do not strike the castle."

The guard stilled and turned around in surprise at the bizarre directive, just in time to watch Lotor pull his winged helm over his silvered hair.

"Sire?"

"I need to find the Princess," he explained before exiting the command room to take up his personal cruiser.

* * *

His bootsteps echoed down the empty corridor, the noise drowned out by the keening wail of the flashing red light in the hallway.  The light in the princess's chamber was off, so he had presumed her to be elsewhere.  After breaking though the glass window into a lit library only to find it empty, he was beginning to doubt his original suspicions.

"Hey!"

With little hesitance, Lotor spun on heel, catching the Arusian guard by the throat.  The rifle in the man's hands dropped to the ground when the Drule pinned him to the wall.

"Where is Princess Allura," he demanded, careful not to choke the man too sharply - he still needed information.

The guard only cringed against the hold.

"You think you can protect her by remaining silent? I _will_ find her!  The question is, how much is your life worth?"

He coughed.

"Quarantine..."

The words caught Lotor by surprise and he dropped the guard to the ground in shock.

"She's ill?"

When the human only nodded, the prince scowled.

"With what?"

"I don't know," he replied honestly, rubbing his throat.  "None of us are permitted in the hall near her room, but the nurses go, so it can't be contagious..."

"Good enough," he muttered.  "Good news for you, my friend, you've been useful. You get to live today."

A swift strike to the side of the guard's head rendered the man unconscious in the corridor, allowing Lotor to retrieve the cardkey from his person.

The Drule made it a point to slip undetected the rest of the way down the hallway until he stood outside the Princess's chambers.

As he hesitated outside her door to fumble with the keypad and card access, he became subliminally aware of a faint perfume.  He only noticed it acutely when the floral scent enticed a shiver to roll down his spine.

His brow furrowed. 

The scent was vaguely familiar, as if he had caught a note of it before but never quite realized it.

As expected, the room was locked, but a tap of the key later and the lock changed to green. He pressed his fingers to the touchpad and the door opened.

He stepped into the darkened room, allowing the door to close, the chambers plunging back into darkness.

The subtle fragrance in the hallway bloomed in full force around him, his entire body reacting to the delectable flavor.

He licked his lips, tasting the air, his pupils blowing wide in the darkness, compensating for the lack of light.

_There._

A bundle wrapped in blankets in the center of her bed.

"Allura, my swe... eet?"

His confident voice failed when the form only shivered once in response. 

No vicious retort, no grapple for a weapon.  The only sound was... _a whimper?_

He was at the side of her bed in a moment's time, a cautious hand touching at the blankets, peeling them back carefully.

A porcelain brow furrowed in his direction as her pupils widened in the darkness, nearly devouring the oceanic eyes.  Creases formed outside her lashes as she squinted against the shadows, her own vision not nearly as adapted for near-darkness as his.

Dry, pale lips were parted slightly, allowing for uneven, ragged breath, her cheeks flushed with a fevered sweat.

While Allura lay curled on her side with her back facing him, her shoulders had draped back to touch the mattress and her head turned his way.

Lotor knew the moment she recognized him – there was a sudden hardness to her liquid sapphires, followed promptly by a resounding strike to his cheek.

* * *

Allura’s world spun on edge at the sudden movement, but she didn’t regret it for a moment.  Grappling the stranded bits of her strength together, she lunged off her bed in the opposite direction from which he stumbled backwards.

A solid body thudded against the floor and the princess wasn’t certain which of them had made the sound until it was followed by a Drulish curse.

Her vision swam as her panic mounted; the sweat that broke out across her skin no longer due solely to her fever as adrenaline ran unchecked through her bloodstream.

A thickness choked at her throat, threatening to spill the little she had eaten when her body became entangled with the sheet.

A sharp cry of dismay left her lips when her shoulders slipped to the floor but her legs remained entangled with her dressing down and linens.

She froze as the mattress bowed above her, her breath captive in her chest.

_Please let it be another hallucination_ , she prayed softly.

A disgruntled Drulish face appeared over her pinned frame on the floor; his eyes catching the nearly non-existent light in the room in a way that made them appear to _glow._

She squeaked when he smirked down at her and she quickly retook to her scrambling to unknot herself from the bedding.

“Enough,” he rasped out; a command softened by a lack of volume.  “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

An oath must have slipped her lips because a chuckle rolled from the man without other provocation.  She batted away his hand as he reached for her, stilling the chuckle on his lips as his eyes narrowed.

“Don’t…” She exhaled, out of breath from the single word.  “Don’t touch…” The last wall of her fortitude ebbed away when she couldn’t even conjure a proper threat.  Defiance melted when her head lulled back to rest against the ground, surrendering to her helpless situation.

Her very bones themselves ached, her muscles too weak to even untangle herself from her own clothing…  at her best the prince was still a force to be reckoned with, and she presently found herself with barely the strength to speak.

Her eyelids draped closed before she caught sight of his own widening in surprise.  She heard the mattress release, as if a weight had come off of it, before becoming acutely aware of a dominating presence kneeling near her shoulders.

“Allura.”

She grunted stubbornly as a large hand eased under her back, _gently_ cradling her.  Allura sucked in a breath suddenly, shocked by the sensation that touch created.  A strange feeling settled in her spine; was it… _calming_? _Why the stars would anything about him be **calming**?_

The princess pouted in defiance as his other hand deftly unwound the curled fabric from her legs before lifting her up and depositing her daintily back into the center of the mattress.

Her hands tightened together, laced firmly on her chest as she cracked an eye open to look up at him.  His hip pressed into the side of hers, one palm on the far side of her body as he leaned over, settling on the side of the bed near her.

Her war-hewn expression melted at the strange look of consternation he bestowed her.

An elegant, haughty brow raised with her suspicions.

His worry deepened when it took her three tries to finally utter the phrase that danced just past her lips, each effort more exhausting that the one before.

“What,” she finally mumbled in his direction.

“What’s happened to you?”

Her fight was extinguished; she lay recoiled on her back beneath his arm, glaring up at him with weariness he was not used to seeing openly displayed.  For the brevity of their struggle, her chest heaved as if she had run a marathon, sweat beaded her brow and the flushed look upon her cheeks was not from a battle hard-fought.

“I’m sick,” she deadpanned, her voice creaking in the process, procuring a brilliant blush for her cheeks.

“And where are your attendants?  Your nurses?”  His wide eyes scanned the vacant room.

He noticed a silver tray on the dresser, a teapot, an upturned, unused cup, and a silver dome housing some type of food beneath it.

Other than the room service, there appeared to be little to no presence in her chambers.

“They don’t come,” she whispered after a moment in an exhale. 

His brow furrowed.

“Your guardsman said it wasn’t contagious,” Lotor replied carefully.  His free hand reached for and deftly traced the contour of her cheek, surprised when she didn’t flinch at the touch.

“…did he?”  She exhaled, regathering her strength.  “Did you… …did you hurt him?”

“No.”  He paused.  “…He might have a headache when he wakes, but no.”

Allura only exhaled and closed her eyes, relaxing back into the pillows.

“Still, you should… you should leave.”

“Why have they not attended you, Allura?”  His eyes narrowed.

Her brow creased as she focused on her breathing.

“Why has whom not… what did you ask…?”

Blue eyes flashed open, unfocused in the darkness, a wild, incoherent glint to their depths.

His thumb brushed her cheek again; while not unkind, there was a roughness that drew her attention back to him, her rapid breathing calming slightly.

“Allura,” he spoke slowly, carefully.  “Have doctors not come to see you?  Does your staff not come to bring you comforts?”

She studied him for a moment and he watched with rapt fascination as the seconds ticked by and she appeared to grow more anxious.

“I… they… they can’t, it wouldn’t be… proper,” she murmured.

On a whim, Lotor decided to test something.  He withdrew his palm from her cheek just long enough to tug his glove off.  With little hesitation, he returned it to her face, pressing skin against skin.

The exhale of relief that followed was undeniable as Allura sighed, her panic calming nearly entirely.

His eyebrows arched in surprise at the unusual reaction. 

_Something was amiss…_

As Lotor’s skin brushed hers, a strange, protective sensation coiled within him.  What had once been a mission of conquest had suddenly shifted to one of fortitude.

His plan had been to whisk her away to Doom while the robeast contended with the remaining lions, but that plan was rapidly abandoned.

The warlord rose from the bed and stalked around the room, sealing the steel shutters over her glass window and dead-locking the door.  Satisfied at the barricade, he turned to face her sad expression.

“Do you really mean to harm someone who can barely raise her head?”

He stared, struck.

“ _What?_ ”

Allura’s fatigued expression flickered to the door.

“Why else…” she paused to catch her breath, a dangerous wheeze sounding from her lungs.  “Why else would you…” The princess trailed off helplessly, abandoning the line of thought as her strength failed her.  The message was evident in her tone; she didn’t need to finish the words.

“I’m not going to harm you, Allura,” he murmured, returning to his position at the side of her bed.

“You’ve made it… so no one else can come in,” she whispered in response.

“I’ve made it so that _no one_ can harm you,” he replied adamantly.

A strange expression flashed over her features as she regarded him intently.  She gasped in shock as he slid his hip next to hers, easing himself beside her on the mattress.  Allura blinked up at him, wide-eyed.

“…what did you say?”

“I will keep you safe,” he affirmed before he even checked the thought.  Before Lotor could backpedal on the soft promise, the blush that warmed Allura’s cheeks stole the words from his lips.

“How strange,” she murmured after a moment.  “Perhaps I truly am still hallucinating.  Come, then,” she encouraged openly, tossing aside her concerns and wariness, favoring instead that her mind had slipped into unconsciousness and madness.

Lotor stared.

“What?”

“If you mean to protect me then, rest beside me,” Allura replied, indicating the mattress beside her.

He hesitated as a strange, primal thrum urged him to heed her beckon.  The call echoed within his blood, but it was not one of conquest or triumph; rather it resonated from a foreign part of himself.

“Belt,” she murmured offhandedly as he leaned toward her.

“Do you mean to undress me, my dear?”  A devilish grin cracked at his lips as she ordered him about.

A frown flashed across her features at the thought.

“I don’t wish to be impaled, even in my dreams,” she muttered as he removed the garish ornament and dropped it to the floor beside the bed.

“Are you dreaming of me?”

“Apparently, as you’re here and I am ill,” she explained in exhaustion.  “It's only natural that I’d crave a remedy, strange it appears as _you_.”

Lotor stilled on the edge of her bed, the strange phrase striking him oddly.

"Remedy?"

"Drat you," she muttered, tossing her forearm over the bridge of her nose, hiding her eyes in the crook of her elbow.  Her brow creased with a weary ache as a deep exhale fled her ribcage.  "I'm not going to explain Arusian biomedics to you - I'm too exhausted for that," she murmured.

She didn't flinch as the mattress sagged beside her body and she felt the heavy weight of a muscled Drule conqueror fall into place beside her.

“I have all the time in the world.”

“Of course you do,” she replied smartly.

“Will you try?”

Allura murmured something in response as her head rested upon his shoulder.

“I asked if you would try,” he clarified at her confusion.  “To explain what the remedy is, and why you welcome your enemy but not your physicians to your chambers.”

She only exhaled, nestling into his side with a familiarity that alarmed him.

Gentle palms curled around her protectively, gathering the blankets and pillows about her.

She muttered something cynical in response, causing the Drule to freeze mid-laugh.

“Allura,” he tested the ludicrous answer hovering on his lips.  “… is your remedy… those… _biomedics_ that you don’t care to explain… is it _sex?_ ”

For all her fatigue, he was impressed with the speed with which the throw pillow was slammed down on his face.

“Get out,” she ordered weakly.

“I don’t believe you’re in a place to order me around, my dear,” he chastised gently, pulling the pillow from his face.  Livid, blue wildfire met his humor and it quieted. “…I’m not actually that far off, am I?”  His grin widened perceptively when her cheeks darkened in response.

“I said, _leave_.”

“But you wanted me to stay before,” he persisted.

“Yes, and I know you, and I know you’ll take it too far, now get out.  I've clearly made a mistake.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I’ll scream for help.”

“By your own castle’s command, no one is in your hallways.  No one is in earshot.  Now… _why_ is that,” he insisted.

He allowed Allura the room to sit up, her arms folding over her body.  He noticed mutedly that while she turned away in a pout, she made no other effort to leave the bed.

“Like I said, it’s not proper,” she exhaled in frustration.  Strength seemed to surge through her from her frustration with the irritating prince.

Her spine stiffened as he reached out, his palm pressing softly into the small of her back.

“Lay back down,” he murmured.  When her eyes only flashed in fury, he added.  “You’ve already recovered some of your strength, it appears.  _Something_ is working.”

A deep flush caressed her cheeks, and while her lips tightened in defiance, no words came.  With an aggravated exhale, she reticently unfolded her arms.

As if aware of how thin her pride ran, he held his tongue and merely offered her the covers as she settled in beside him, albeit stiffly at first.

No other words were exchanged, her gaze avoiding his, his palms politely open and not oppressive as they rested across her shoulder and waist.

“It’s…” She trailed off, as if calculating the most succinct way to describe the phenomenon.  “Well.  I suppose this may come as a laughable surprise to you but… Arusians are actually considered warriors themselves, you know.”

“King Alfor led the Lion Warriors,” he agreed.

Allura blinked, startled by the acknowledgement.

“Yes, well…  I know we certainly don’t come across particularly fierce,” she added dryly.

Allura stilled as she felt him stiffen beneath her.

“What do you mean?  Your people are fierce beyond recognition – you are the _only_ planet to hold up against my father – and not just once.  _Consistently._ ”

Allura felt a flush color her skin at the indirect praise.

“Well.  I suppose many people believe that if you have someone who _prefers_ not to fight… who _chooses_ not to fight whenever they can… who even dislikes it as a premise… that that somehow means that they _cannot_ fight if they must.”

“I don’t believe anyone has questioned your fortitude, Allura.  I, certainly have not.”

She exhaled, nearly pacified by the honest response.

“Part…” She trailed off, biting down on her lip as the full spectrum of her situation settled in; she lay curled atop the chest of the heir to the Drule Empire; her single most lethal enemy...  And yet, for some reason, she felt _safe._   “Part of what comes with that...”

Lotor continued to express an uncharacteristic amount of patience as she spoke, furthering her belief that perhaps, after all, he was just a hallucination.

“Yes?”

“We have bursts of stamina, we can press through pain or injuries in a manner many cannot.  We heal quickly, but… that unfortunately only applies to external injuries.”

“Go on.”

She exhaled in defeat.

“When we become internally ill – a fever, for example, we require a state of absolute rest to recover efficiently.  And… we do not do that easily.  When we rest, we sleep with one ear open, forever hovering in the space between light and deep sleep, always listening for a battle horn, a twig snap in the night.”

“Then how do you heal,” he murmured, a frown touching his features at the information.

A dry laugh barked from her lungs.

“We call out.  Ah, it’s… like a perfume, I suppose. We call to other able-bodied Arusians to stay near us.  Branded warriors to stand watch, essentially. Once near someone that we believe could keep us safe no matter what – we can release our hold on the conscious world.  It’s… it’s why the guards cannot come near.  It would be a siren’s call to them, and it would not be… _proper_ , to have them stay,” Allura finished with an exhale.  “It should only take another few days or so, and my body will recover one way or another, even if it’s the hard way.”

The princess blinked as his hands tightened against her body, pulling her closer to his chest, one of his palms threading through her hair, almost in a caress.

“The hard way?”

A nervous giggle left her lips.

“Yes, I’ll heal on my own, outside that state of deep rest.  It’s… a more painful process, and takes much longer.  But it’s still possible.”

“A perfume, you said?”

She murmured something in assent.

“I scented that in the hallway,” he replied.

Allura’s still form stiffened after a moment, as his words settled in.  She shifted at his side, tilting her head up to regard him, a crease across her brow.

“No, no that must have been something else.  This is… something that calls only to other Arusians… it begs them to abandon all duty and to defend and protect… it wouldn’t be possible for you to be aware of it.”

A profound moment passed between them as his eyes slowly moved to the barricaded door and window before sliding back to her.

“Are you so certain?”

A nervous laugh left her lips.

“Prince Lotor, it’s an element designed for survival hardwired into our biochemistry – you’d have to be at _least_ part Arusian for… …for that…”  The mirth left her voice as she trailed off to a whisper.  “…for that to happen.”

“Indeed I would,” he promised darkly.

Her breath caught as her world reeled.

“…Are… are you…?”

“You should rest while you can, since apparently your own people don’t feel the need to aid in your recovery,” he said swiftly, pulling the blankets tighter around the trembling princess.

“Surely you can’t mean-!”

“Allura, it may be days longer, you said, if you don’t take advantage of this now. On my honor as a Crown Prince, you _will_ be safe.”

“…On Arus,” she clarified warily, drawing a deep laugh from him.

“Yes,” he confirmed.

Something about the admission clicked something deep and primal inside her.  A warmth unlocked, threading through her veins as a headiness overtook her consciousness.

The desire to be alert at all times, to monitor her senses, and sleep in only a semi-state of consciousness abandoned her without consent.

Darkness surged through her mind as her body breathed a sigh of relief, the relaxation a welcomed state of being.

_Now I’m certain I am hallucinating,_ she thought dryly before all thoughts purged from her mind as the blissful numbness of complete surrender overtook her.

* * *

Sunlight warmed Allura’s face and she smiled, her eyelids fluttering open.

Strength surged within her muscles and fortified her blood as she eased herself up into a sitting position.

“First time in five days,” she breathed in relief; the fever having passed.  As her eyes skimmed the empty bedchamber, she couldn’t help but feel as though something was missing.

She frowned, memories of her dreams flickering back to her.  Fever dreams were a common occurrence when Arusian bodies were tested; but none had been more clear or as real as Lotor.

She pressed up from the mattress, testing the strength of her legs.  After a trial, she was able to stand and gently stretch her muscles.

King Alfor had been a common theme in her dreams; some nightmares of his demise, others words of praise and encouragement for her.  Once, she had even dreamed of her mother – rather, the portrait hidden in her father’s study, drawn away under a black shawl.

_Dreaming of comforts,_ she thought quietly.  _…Why Lotor, then?_

A weary laugh left her lips as she moved across the ground toward her vanity, easing herself into the chair and drawing her brush from its resting place.

_He had said he was part-Arusian.  How strange of a fantasy.  As if I sought to connect with him somehow..._

The brush hesitated, still threaded through her locks as a solemn sensation settled over her.

_Things could be much easier if he were, though.  Perhaps he **could** understand… perhaps **I** could._

She retook her grooming, finding a simple joy that the usually-painful process of healing in a super-conscious state had ended so quickly.

“The last fever took two weeks.”  She frowned, recalling the pins-and-needles, fire-like feeling of it.  “Perhaps I am growing stronger… perhaps-“

She froze, something catching her eye in the mirror she sat before.

A cold chill settled through her veins and carefully set her brush down slowly.

Numbly, she rose to her feet and turned back toward her bed.

With mounting alarm, she paused beside the edge and silently dropped to her knees, reaching beneath the frame.  Azure eyes widened when her fingertips brushed cool, hardened material, and her trembling palms drew out nothing shy of a promise itself.

She ran her fingers over the terrain of the artifact resting in her lap as if unable to believe in its authenticity.

“…Was it all real, then?”

The familiar skull ornament in her lap only glittered back in response.


End file.
